And the aforementioned book isn’t even the one that’s the focus of his first visit in four years to The Mike Nowak Show. His latest effort is something called Of Naked Ladies and Forget-Me-Nots, which had a working title of Of Naked Ladies and Sleepy Dicks. True story, and I plan to ask him about it on air.

But before I get too far down the road, for those of you who aren’t acquainted with Allan Armitage should know that he is a world-renowned writer, speaker and researcher who was raised in Canada and has continued to move south, stopping at Michigan State University to get a Ph.D., then continuing on to Athens, Georgia, where he now makes his home.

But back to Naked Ladies, as I always say. Armitage picks a few dozen plants with interesting common names–bee balm, bleeding hearts, dogbane, love in the mist, false indigo, Joe Pye weed, snapdragons, to name a few–and digs around to find the origins. He writes,

In the case of this book, few references were based on someone being there at the time. Dozens of names may be rooted in an ancient Germanic tongue, found in an Old English dictionary, or buried in an ancient tome on herbology. To be sure, some of the etymology is guesswork, but I have done my best to provide as much credibility as possible to a rather incredible subject.

And oh boy, these common names have been fun to research and even more fun to share. Anyone who takes me to task because some of the information is not academically 100 percent correct should not be reading this book. You do not dream enough.

Amen, brother man.

And remember when I wrote that Armitage is a character? It’s on full display here. He even gets to weave in a couple of personal stories, which fit like gloves in this charming book.

I hope you tune in or catch the podcast. This will be fun.

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Less than a week ago, I received a letter from friend of the show Charlotte Adelman, who is the author of the just-released book, Midwestern Native Shrubs and Trees. While we intend to have her on the show soon, that’s not the reason she wrote.

Instead, it was about a parcel of land in Wilmette called Isabella Woods. Basically it was a call to sign a letter in opposition to the creation of an access road across the woods, which was described as a “remnant oak forest” north of Isabella Street and between the CTA tracks and the Canal Shores Golf Course. Developers have been fighting to get the road built to a landlocked piece of property called Fairway Oaks for years.

Defenders of the woods claimed that it serves as wildlife habitat and mitigates storm water runoff. On Monday, May 15, the Evanston City Council unanimously approved a resolution objecting to the request for the easement, but the final decision was in the hands of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD). There were indications that on the following Thursday, the MWRD would vote in favor of the development company.

That did not happen.

As organizer Leslie Shad wrote,

WE WON. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District this afternoon unanimously voted against the Isabella Woods easement.

Commissioner Debra Shore spoke in defense of habitat and wildlife “that often has no voice.” All the commissioners thanked us, and many mentioned what a difference the petition letter and emails to their offices made.

The vote was so inspiring and truly invigorating. All signals were that we would not be celebrating today. But every commissioner stepped away from political and legal pressure to defend the public trust we place in them.

Another organizer, Noreen Edwards Metz, joins us in studio to talk about this unexpected but certainly welcome victory for natural areas in Chicagoland.

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Another person who hasn’t been on my show in awhile, and who visits the WCGO studios this morning, is M.D. Skeet, also known to friends and colleagues alike as simply Skeet. With those initials, you might think that Skeet is a doctor. Well, you could consider him a tree doctor, because he’s an ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) certified arborist with Bartlett Tree Experts.

He’s here this morning to talk trees and answer questions that our listeners might have about insects, diseases and other issues about the trees in their yards or neighborhood.